Science Musings Blog

Sunday, August 28, 2005

By any other name

Tradition has it that Adam was allowed by the Creator to name all the creatures of the Earth.

It must have been some task. According to biologists, there are between 10 and 100 million species of living organisms. That means if Adam thought up a name a minute for 16 hours a day (Sundays included), it would take him somewhere between 30 and 300 years to complete the job.

Still, it must have been fun coming up with names like "duck-billed platypus," "tufted titmouse" and "precious wentletrap." And speaking of names, see this week's Musing.